NAD announces $175,000 settlement with New Jersey jail

The National Association of the Deaf and the law office of Clara R. Smit reached an agreement with Mercer County, New Jersey to pay $175,000 to Ronald Chisolm, a deaf man who was incarcerated in their detention center for five days and appeared before the county court without an interpreter in 1994. This concluded a nine-year-old nightmare for Chisolm. In addition Mercer County agreed to enter into an agreement to provide injunctive relief for all future deaf inmates incarcerated in their facility.

"Mr. Chisolm won a significant victory," said Marc Charmatz of the NAD Law and Advocacy Center. "He should never have been in pre-trial detention and in court without interpreter services to communicate effectively. The settlement helps make up for five days of discrimination he will never forget."

On September 10, 1994, Chisolm was driving with a hearing friend in Princeton, NJ when local police stopped his vehicle and he was handcuffed and arrested. Chisolm communicates primarily in American Sign Language so he had no idea why he was being arrested. His friend tried to explain what the police were saying to him with the little sign language that he knew. Police said that there was an open bench warrant for Chisolm, but he thought they meant a "warranty" and did not understand what was being done.

Bewildered and frantic, Chisolm was taken to the Mercer County Detention Center. Despite requests by Chisolm and his friend for an interpreter and a TTY, none was provided. Chisolm was placed in solitary confinement in a solid four-walled cell with just a small rectangular opening for food trays for the next four days. His only contact with the outside world was with the intake officers who classified him incorrectly as a vagrant. In addition, a nurse incorrectly noted that he was a suicide risk as he cried and flailed his arms in his attempts to communicate. The incorrect classification and inability to communicate with him had him classified as a higher security risk so he was not placed in the general population.

The detention center failed to provide him with a TTY, so Chisolm could not call his attorney until four days later when the detention center allowed him access to the TTY his friend brought him. His friend also contacted Smit, a lawyer in East Brunswick, NJ who specializes in serving the deaf. She began investigating the warrant and called the detention center to try to arrange interpreter and a TTY for Chisolm. Smit was told the jail could not provide interpreters or TTYs.

During Smit’s investigation, she discovered the arrest warrant had been issued from Bucks County, Pennsylvania as a result of a DWI in 1989, five years prior to Chisolm’s arrest. The state contended that Chisolm had never attended the required classes to satisfy his plea. Smit then found out Chisolm had attended the class in 1989, but that there was no interpreter and he was told to go home. Bucks County then issued a bench warrant for his arrest, which remained open for five years.

On the fifth day of his incarceration on September 14, after Chisolm had finally been removed from solitary confinement and placed for one day in the open population, he was taken to the Middlesex County Court for an extradition hearing unbeknownst to Chisolm or Smit. There was no interpreter at the court, so Chisolm was then sent back to the jail with a note that they would bring him back when someone was available to interpret. The court then rescheduled the hearing for September 20; the date given to them by one interpreter they called, who was not told the deaf man was in jail waiting for an interpreter. The court fully intended to keep him incarcerated an extra six days solely because he was deaf.

"Mr. Chisolm was basically in solitary confinement for five days because neither pre-trial detention nor court officials could communicate with him," said Charmatz. "No one should have to go through this type of punishment."

When Smit discovered he had been at court without an interpreter and the hearing adjourned for six days, she then called the interpreter herself and arranged for a hearing the very next morning. She also had the warrant quashed that afternoon and Chisolm was finally released.

In 1995, Chisolm filed his complaint in federal court against the Mercer County Detention Center and the County Court for their failure to provide interpreters, closed captioning and telecommunication devices during his incarceration and court appearance in violation of federal and state law. After numerous court decisions and an appeal in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit revived the case in 2001, this case was set for trial in the federal court before Judge Mary Cooper.

Smit and Charmatz represented Chisolm in the case. After eight years of litigation, Mercer County Detention Center agreed to settle the case and pay $175,000 for monetary damages and attorneys' fees, and provide for injunctive relief in the settlement agreement.

The settlement agreement will provide for signage throughout Mercer County Detention Center to alert both inmates and staff alike to the facilities' responsibility to provide interpreters, closed captioning and TTYs to deaf inmates to ensure effective communication. In addition, the agreement mandates that the detention center follow several steps to ensure all possible efforts are made to obtain an interpreter whenever required throughout the day or night. Training and policy changes to implement the settlement agreement which will become part of the Detention Center's administrative policy are also required as part of the agreement.

Smit, Charmatz and Chisolm are extremely pleased and excited with this settlement and hope to see major changes in detention centers across the country, in their policies and practices.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, and the Rehabilitation Act specifically require that jails and detention centers provide reasonable accommodations, such as interpreters to the deaf. Communication difficulties in the past created extremely limited access to the legal community and the courts in general for deaf individuals. Smit and the National Association for the Deaf are working to bring about changes and awareness through lawsuits against jails, prisons, and court systems that do not follow the law.